"The [media] class keeps its
writers the way one keeps a canary. If it sings, fine. If it doesn't sing
or, what's even worse, if it doesn't sing the desired melody, one gets rid
of it." Kurt Tucholsky, Berlin, 1931 in a review of "Money Writes!" by Upton
Sinclair, 1927. [Lightly paraphrased, media = ruling in original German
text.]

March 8, 2005

Most Media Reporters Get Lowest Rating in Common Sense Test

URBANK, March 8 - New research shows they were born that way. I
don't know who Danny Hakim is, but I'd say he eats bird seed for dinner.

Economy cars have been around forever. They were the correct response to increasing gas prices, pollution, and traffic density. SUV's came along much later, were the wrong response to the same conditions, and additionally, by design, increased the risk of injury and death to the owners of the existing economy car fleet.

So where's the cause of the increased risk?

According to birdbrain, it's the econo-car driver's fault for not buying an armored, IED-proof Humvee which can stand up to the SUV's and pickups with those gleaming chrome teeth just itching to come through his side window.

Is he stupid or what?

OTTO

March 7, 2005

Most New Small Cars Get Lowest Rating in Crash Test

By DANNY HAKIM

WRONG SPIN

ETROIT, March 6 - New research shows that small cars are
not being built well enough to stand up to sport utility vehicles
and pickup trucks in side impacts.

RIGHT SPIN

ETROIT, March 6 - New research shows that sport utility
vehicles and pickup trucks are being built to kill occupants of
small vehicles in side impacts.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which is financed by car
insurers, conducted the research and released its report Sunday night. In
it, the institute said 14 of 16 small cars received the lowest of four
possible safety ratings in a side-impact collision.

The group was unusually harsh in its assessment of one car, the Dodge
Neon. "This car is a disaster," said Adrian Lund, the chief operating
officer for the institute.

The Toyota Corolla and the new Chevrolet Cobalt from General Motors
were the only small cars tested that received anything better than a
rating of poor. The two vehicles were rated acceptable, the second-highest
rating from the group. Both received the rating only when equipped with
optional side curtain air bags. Without that option, the Corolla and the
Cobalt were given poor ratings.

The institute also released two frontal crash test results Sunday, and
gave the Cobalt its highest rating in that test.

Outside of the government, the institute conducts the most extensive
crash testing of vehicles sold in the United States. In 2003, the
institute began the first crash tests that simulate what happens when a
sport utility vehicle or pickup strikes another vehicle in the side. By
contrast, the government's side-impact tests simulate what happens when a
car strikes other vehicles in the side.

The results released Sunday involved the first small cars subjected to
the insurer's test, which uses two dummies that represent smaller-size
women riding in the front and back seats. One purpose of using these
dummies is to make sure that curtain air bags extend far enough to protect
the heads of shorter people.

Small cars are particularly vulnerable when being hit in the side by
S.U.V.'s and pickup trucks, whose higher ground clearance means they often
do not engage with the most crash-absorbing structures of cars.

Federal statistics show that the vehicles with the lowest fatality
rates for their own occupants are large cars, station wagons and minivans.
Sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks offset the advantages of their
increased bulk with their relative instability, because they ride higher
from the ground.

In 2003, automakers agreed to start working jointly to make cars safer
when they are hit by trucks, and to make S.U.V.'s and pickups less lethal
when they hit cars.

The insurer's new test, however, shows there is much work to do.

Side air bags that offer head protection have been seen as one
important safety feature worth having, but four small cars with such
equipment - the Volkswagen Beetle, the Hyundai Elantra, the Kia Spectra
and the Suzuki Forenza - received poor ratings because their structures
were not sturdy enough to protect other parts of the body.

The Neon fared particularly badly, with the driver dummy sustaining
high levels of force to its head, torso and pelvis. The institute tests
vehicles with standard equipment, but companies are permitted to pay for
testing of their vehicles with optional air bags as well. DaimlerChrysler
chose not to do so with its Neon.

Mr. Lund said the company probably felt that the Neon's structure was
so deficient that side air bags would not appreciably help.

"If safety is a priority, the Neon is a small car to be avoided," he
said.

In a statement, DaimlerChrysler said that the "Neon has performed well
under a variety of internal and external test conditions, exceeding all
federal safety standards for side-impact protection."

"No single test can determine a vehicle's overall safety performance or
how the vehicle will perform in a specific crash," the statement
said.